Chapter 5 - The Trap at Chicago GeneralThe black Maybach tore through the slush-filled streets of Chicago like a missile, running three red lights before screeching to a halt outside the emergency entrance of Chicago General.
William burst out of the car before it had even fully stopped, his long coat billowing behind him. Ethan tumbled out right behind him, moving with the agile grace of someone used to fleeing alleyway fights. Marcus Vance followed, huffing and puffing, clutching his briefcase like a shield.
They surged through the sliding glass doors, past screaming nurses and terrified patients, sprinting straight toward the fourth-floor pediatric wing.
When they rounded the corner of Room 412, the scene was a nightmare.
The heavy oak door was blown inward, its brass hinges splintered. Inside, the room was wrecked. Medical monitors had been smashed against the wall, their glass screens spiderwebbed and sparking with electrical arcs. IV bags were slashed, dripping clear saline onto the polished linoleum floor in a steady, rhythmic splash.
At the center of the room stood an empty crib.
The white cotton baby blanket lay crumpled on the floor, stained with a dark, viscous smear of blood.
William froze. The air left his lungs in a single, jagged motion. He fell to his knees beside the empty crib, his large hands gripping the wooden rails until his knuckles turned bone-white.
"No," William whispered, the sound tearing from his throat like glass. "No, no, no!"
Marcus rushed into the room, horror contorting his face. "Julian! That miserable, insane bastard! He took the boy!"
Ethan didn't panic. While the two older men stood paralyzed by grief and rage, the homeless boy dropped to his hands and knees. His eyes scanned the floor, sweeping across the broken glass, the spilled saline, and the bloody blanket.
"He didn't go out the door," Ethan said.
William snapped his head up, his eyes burning with lethal intensity. "How do you know?"
"Look at the glass," Ethan pointed at the fragments scattered across the floor near the window. "When someone breaks a window from the inside to escape, the glass falls outward onto the street. But look here—all these shards are inside the room. Someone broke in, not out."
Marcus stared down at the floor, bewildered. "Break in? But why would Julian break in to kidnap a baby he already tried to poison?"
"Because," a cold, smooth voice echoed from the shattered doorway, "the poison was just Plan A."
The three men spun around.
Standing in the doorway, casually leaning against the splintered frame, was a man in an expensive gray wool coat. In his arms, wrapped tightly in a blue hospital blanket, he held a small, motionless bundle.
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Behind him stood three armed men in unmarked tactical gear, their suppressed automatic rifles pointed squarely at William Carter's chest.
And holding a pistol directly to the temple of a tiny, breathing infant was Julian Vance.
